On November 10, thousands of angry TAFE teachers attended stop-work meetings across New South Wales. They voted to reject the changes in working conditions mandated by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC).
The teachers called on Premier Nathan Rees and education and training minister Verity Firth to negotiate a settlement with the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF).
TAFE teachers also voted to take statewide action alongside their high school and primary school colleagues if the dispute is not resolved in the next few weeks.
In a November 10 statement federation President Bob Lipscombe said: "TAFE teachers today have overwhelmingly rejected the appalling decision of the IRC to introduce Work Choices style changes to their working conditions."
The dramatic attacks on TAFE teacher working conditions sets a worrying precedent for NSW primary and high school teachers. A new round of salary negotiations for school teachers will begin within 20 months. NSW teachers need to support their TAFE colleagues in this fight.
The IRC ruling means TAFE teachers will have an extra hour a week of face-to-face teaching time and an extra five hours a week in attendance time.
The Department of Education and Training (DET) successfully argued to the IRC that each additional hour of attendance was worth less than $3.
Furthermore, TAFE teachers can now be required to teach face-to-face for up to 35 hours a week between 6am and 10pm. They will have no right to refuse a particular shift.
TAFE teachers have also lost the right to use their professional judgment to determine how to use their non-face-to-face teaching time. Now, TAFE management will decide.
Also, teachers will lose paid long service leave if they decide to take leave on both sides of the TAFE vacation period.
The NSW government will make big savings from the changes to TAFE working conditions. The IRC accepted DET's argument that the changes were needed to meet budget constraints and salary rises, despite evidence presented by the NSWTF that the salary increases had already been funded through cost savings.
The union pointed to the government's own budget figures that showed TAFE funds from commercial revenue, fees and charges had risen by $53 million in a year — enough to pay for the salary increases.
Past debates in the NSWTF also have a bearing on the current dispute.
In February, a minority of NSWTF members argued high school and primary school teachers should hold off from agreeing to a salary settlement with DET until the proposed changes in TAFE working conditions were finalised.
The minority said the bargaining power of TAFE teachers would be significantly reduced if high school and primary school NSWTF members, who make up the bulk of the NSWTF membership, settled before TAFE teachers.
The NSWTF leadership rejected this argument and cited the economic crisis as a reason why school teachers could not afford to wait. They successfully convinced the school teachers to accept a separate deal with DET.
[John Gauci is a secretary of the Inner City Teachers Association, a councillor on the NSWTF state council and a member of the Socialist Alliance.]